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The Optimized Storage features of your Mac help you save storage space by storing your content in iCloud and making it available on demand:

  • When storage space is needed, files, photos, movies, email attachments, and other files that you seldom use are stored in iCloud automatically.
  • Each file stays right where you last saved it, and downloads when you open it.
  • Files that you’ve used recently remain on your Mac, along with optimized versions of your photos.
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  2. Note: Upgrading the old hard drive of your Mac to a solid-state drive (SSD) will bring a new life into a dying computer. Get Rid of Clutter. Get rid of clutter by removing big files that you no longer require. Click the 'review files' button and then pick any file category in the sidebar like Trash, Music, Documents, Creation, or Applications.

Changing a drive or folder icon on your Mac is easy-to-do and only takes a couple steps. Click on the icon you want to use and type 'Command-i,' or right-click the icon and select 'Get Info' from the menu. In the info window that opens, click on the icon in the top left corner and the icon will highlight. MacOS Big Sur & MontereymacOS App icons. MacOS App icons. Download one of our free icon templates from the resources page. Important There's a technical issue with the server and I'm currently away on holiday until next week. Apologies for any inconvenience caused. (All your icons are safe, don't worry 😊). How to remove the hard drive icons from your desktop on Mac OS X. This is simple trick found in the Finder Preferences that will help you declutter your desk.

If you haven't yet upgraded to macOS Sierra or later, learn about other ways to free up storage space.

Find out how much storage is available on your Mac

Choose Apple menu  > About This Mac, then click Storage. Each segment of the bar is an estimate of the storage space used by a category of files. Move your pointer over each segment for more detail.

Click the Manage button to open the Storage Management window, pictured below.

Manage storage on your Mac

The Storage Management window offers recommendations for optimizing your storage. If some recommendations are already turned on, you will see fewer recommendations.

Store in iCloud

Click the Store in iCloud button, then choose from these options:

  • Desktop and Documents. Store all files from these two locations in iCloud Drive. When storage space is needed, only the files you recently opened are kept on your Mac, so that you can easily work offline. Files stored only in iCloud show a download icon , which you can double-click to download the original file. Learn more about this feature.
  • Photos. Store all original, full-resolution photos and videos in iCloud Photos. When storage space is needed, only space-saving (optimized) versions of photos are kept on your Mac. To download the original photo or video, just open it.
  • Messages. Store all messages and attachments in iCloud. When storage space is needed, only the messages and attachments you recently opened are kept on your Mac. Learn more about Messages in iCloud.

Storing files in iCloud uses the storage space in your iCloud storage plan. If you reach or exceed your iCloud storage limit, you can either buy more iCloud storage or make more iCloud storage available. iCloud storage starts at 50GB for $0.99 (USD) a month, and you can purchase additional storage directly from your Apple device. Learn more about prices in your region.

Optimize Storage

Click the Optimize button to save space by automatically removing watched movies and TV shows. When storage space is needed, movies or TV shows that you purchased from Apple and already watched are removed from your Mac. Click the download icon next to a movie or TV show to download it again.

Your Mac will also save space by keeping only recent email attachments on this Mac when storage space is needed. You can manually download any attachments at any time by opening the email or attachment, or saving the attachment to your Mac.

Optimizing storage for movies, TV shows, and email attachments doesn't require iCloud storage space.

Empty Trash Automatically

Empty Trash Automatically permanently deletes files that have been in the Trash for more than 30 days.

Reduce Clutter

Reduce Clutter helps you identify large files and files you might no longer need. Click the Review Files button, then choose any of the file categories in the sidebar, such as Applications, Documents, Music Creation, or Trash.

You can delete the files in some categories directly from this window. Other categories show the total storage space used by the files in each app. You can then open the app and decide whether to delete files from within it.

Learn how to redownload apps, music, movies, TV shows, and books.


Where to find the settings for each feature

The button for each recommendation in the Storage Management window affects one or more settings in other apps. You can also control those settings directly within each app.

  • If you're using macOS Catalina or later, choose Apple menu  > System Preferences, click Apple ID, then select iCloud in the sidebar: Store in iCloud turns on the Optimize Mac Storage setting on the right. To turn off iCloud Drive entirely, deselect iCloud Drive.
  • If you're using macOS Mojave or earlier, choose Apple menu > System Preferences, click iCloud, then click Options next to iCloud Drive. Store in iCloud turns on the Desktop & Documents Folders and Optimize Mac Storage settings.
  • In Photos, choose Photos > Preferences, then click iCloud. Store in iCloud selects iCloud Photos and Optimize Mac Storage.
  • In Messages, choose Messages > Preferences, then click iMessage. Store in iCloud selects Enable Messages in iCloud.
  • If you're using macOS Catalina or later, open the Apple TV app, choose TV > Preferences from the menu bar, then click Files. Optimize Storage selects “Automatically delete watched movies and TV shows.”
  • In you're using macOS Mojave or earlier, open iTunes, choose iTunes > Preferences from the menu bar, then click Advanced. Optimize Storage selects “Automatically delete watched movies and TV shows.”
  • In Mail, choose Mail > Preferences from the menu bar, then click Accounts. In the Account Information section on the right, Optimize Storage sets the Download Attachments menu to either Recent or None.

Empty Trash Automatically: From the Finder, choose Finder > Preferences, then click Advanced. Empty Trash Automatically selects “Remove items from the Trash after 30 days.”

Other ways that macOS helps automatically save space

With macOS Sierra or later, your Mac automatically takes these additional steps to save storage space:

  • Detects duplicate downloads in Safari, keeping only the most recent version of the download
  • Reminds you to delete used app installers
  • Removes old fonts, languages, and dictionaries that aren't being used
  • Clears caches, logs, and other unnecessary data when storage space is needed

How to free up storage space manually

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Even without using the Optimized Storage features described in this article, you can take other steps to make more storage space available:

  • Music, movies, and other media can use a lot of storage space. Learn how to delete music, movies, and TV shows from your device.
  • Delete other files that you no longer need by moving them to the Trash, then emptying the Trash. The Downloads folder is good place to look for files that you might no longer need.
  • Move files to an external storage device.
  • Compress files.
  • Delete unneeded email: In the Mail app, choose Mailbox > Erase Junk Mail. If you no longer need the email in your Trash mailbox, choose Mailbox > Erase Deleted Items.
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Learn more

  • The Storage pane of About This Mac is the best way to determine the amount of storage space available on your Mac. Disk Utility and other apps might show storage categories such as Not Mounted, VM, Recovery, Other Volumes, Other, Free, or Purgeable. Don't rely on these categories to understand how to free up storage space or how much storage space is available for your data.
  • When you duplicate a file on an APFS-formatted volume, that file doesn't use additional storage space on the volume. Deleting a duplicate file frees up only the space required by any data you might have added to the duplicate. If you no longer need any copies of the file, you can recover all of the storage space by deleting both the duplicate and the original file.
  • If you're using a pro app and Optimize Mac Storage, learn how to make sure that your projects are always on your Mac and able to access their files.

An eternal question of any Mac owner is how much space is enough to have on Mac’s hard drive. First of all, this factor predetermines the speed of work. Next, it defines the overall health and performance of an Apple computer. A bare minimum still does not guarantee an exceptional quality of work. At least, it prevents the machine from freezing and crashing.

The experts say a Mac owner should have at least 10-15% of free storage space to let the machine function properly. In fact, a lot of issues manifest the problems with computer’s speed and efficiency. For instance, a lack of RAM (random access memory) or a hardware failure may be the culprit in many cases.

Reasons You May Need to Wipe Free Space on Hard Drive

Mac owners who hurry up to find out how to free space on Mac hard drive forget about one important thing: checking the symptoms and deciding on the diagnosis. Just like in medicine, you cannot treat the patient without learning the causes. They say the same about Apple computers. These “patients” may suffer from a variety of “disorders,” and the primary task of a caring user is to detect the “root of all evil” before purchasing an external drive in a rush. Here is how you can check the health of your Mac.

It is easy to define whether Mac is running out of space by the significant drop in speed. It is important to check the amount of free space and RAM regularly to control the situation. It is simple to get the necessary details by doing the offered:

  • Pick the Apple icon.
  • Choose About This Mac.
  • Select Storage/More Info Storage depending on Mac’s model.

Check how much space is used and how much space is left. If you discover less than 10% remains, it is time to remove useless or outdated items. It may be hard to decide which films, images, and music should go, but there is no other way out unless you have an iCloud account which is almost free or an external drive.

Experienced users may monitor RAM’s and hard drive’s usage with the help of a built-in utility called Activity Monitor. It has several tabs to explore, so focus on the most important things.

  • 1. Launch the application. It is located in the Utilities application in Applications.
  • 2. Next, pick the Real Mem tab to categorize the active processes and apps by memory usage. You will detect the nasty stuff, which is eating most of your precious RAM!
  • 3. Pick the System Memory then. This one stands for the amount of available free memory. Here is when you must make sure the target Apple computer possesses minimum 10% of the memory.

The Activity Monitor tool can even show the amount of real-time memory. Just right-click on the Dock icon and pick Dock Icon à Show Memory Usage.

How to Free Space on Mac Hard Drive

“My favorite device is showing poor performance. It is time to get an extra memory or erase the entire content ASAP!” Replacing your existing Apple computer with a new one or buying an external hard drive may be an expensive solution. While some users are ready to invest in such things to keep as many files and folders in one place as possible, others think about getting rid of the mess to reclaim free space. Perhaps, it is the smartest solution.

The next option is for people who possess an endless amount of patience and enviable free time. Be ready to wipe the hard drive manually, which may be rather time-consuming depending on the number of items stored on the Apple computer. After the back up (which is highly recommended), take additional steps to clean Mac:

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  1. Get rid of the unneeded, old, and large files.
  2. Leave such locations as Downloads, Movies, and Music clean (at least the first one).
  3. Erase caches and cookies:
  • Launch Finder and Go. Pick Go to Folder.
  • Enter ~/Library/Cachesand delete those eating up most of the space.

4. Eliminate outdated iOS backups as well as useless iTunes Library backups:

  • Launch Finder once more to hit Go to Folder.
  • Enter ~/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup/.
  • Detect and choose the old iOS backups and remove them from your device.
  • Enter~/Music/iTunes/Previous iTunes Libraries to erase the oldest iTunes backups.

5. You may also benefit from uninstalling the useless It is better to leave Mac’s native software untouched. Some of the third-party tools have built-in uninstallers that minimize user’s efforts. Do not forget to search for the app’s leftovers in various libraries after uninstalling it!

  • Launch Finder.
  • Choose the Applications folder.

Drag-and-drop the target app’s icon to the Trashcan. It is on the Dock.

Erasing temporary files and language files is a good idea too, but they do not consume as much space as the items discussed above, so start with the most “hungry” items! Do not forget to Empty Trash after tossing away dozens of stuff over there.

Clean Free Space on Hard Drive Like Superhero with the Help of External App!

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What program can free up space on Mac’s hard drive? A top solution is a third-party software one can get on the App Store or from the official developer’s website. Instead of wasting hours on detecting and deleting various sorts of junk on Mac, it is possible to eliminate that stuff in a few clicks. Besides, smart cleaners usually do not leave a chance for the useless things! They find all types of junk hiding on your Mac:

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  • Duplicates;
  • Largest items;
  • Oldest folders & files;
  • Apps’ leftovers;

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  • Caches & cookies;
  • Temporary files;
  • Language files.

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The solution is simple as ABC: you just launch the chosen cleaning tool, let it scan the entire system, and view the results. All you have to do is command to delete the offered items or leave some of them you consider important. No more need to waste time and efforts on such routine things as cleaning your Mac’s hard drive!